Arizona Wildcats unable to close out Princeton, suffer stunning exit from NCAA Tournament

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— After successfully pulling out from the dark clouds of years-long FBI and NCAA investigations under second-year coach Tommy Lloyd, the Arizona Wildcats ran into a more typical case of basketball heartbreak Thursday.

The March Madness kind, that is.

In one of those first-round NCAA Tournaments upsets that will be remembered for decades to come, the second-seeded Wildcats built a 12-point second-half lead only to melt down offensively and lose to Princeton 59-55.

The stunning loss ended the Wildcats’ season at 28-7, with 61 wins to 12 total losses since Lloyd was hired before last season — but no loss more painful than the one his team suffered on Thursday.

“If you want to do great things in life, you’ve got to be willing to step in some dog (expletive) once in a while,” Lloyd said. “That’s just how it is. And we did today. A lot of it was self-inflicted, but a lot of it was from a great opponent who has a lot of pride.”

For a team that often answered an opponents’ run with a run of their own, finishing in second place in the Pac-12 and winning last week’s Pac-12 Tournament, the Wildcats’ meltdown was especially shocking.

Struggling with the Tigers particularly toward the end of both halves, Arizona had built a 47-35 lead with 11:46 to go when Kylan Boswell hit a jumper. But from there, the Wildcats committed six turnovers and made just 3 of 14 field goals.

Much more so than their defense, which held Princeton to just 40.6% shooting overall and just 16% from 3-point range, the Wildcats’ offense failed them at precisely the wrong time, worsening as the final minutes ticked away.

Princeton was hitting only 3 of 22 from 3-point range when Ryan Langborg hit a long 2-point jumper with 3:37 to go, and that’s when the Wildcats’ troubles worsened significantly. After UA’s Pelle Larsson was blocked on the other end, Langborg drove inside for a layup that gave Princeton a 56-55 lead the Ivy League champs never lost.

Ballo defended a shot from Princeton’s Tosan Evbuomwan with 1:12 left to keep Princeton with just a one-point lead, but the Wildcats failed to capitalize on that too. On their ensuing possession, guard Courtney Ramey threw up a jumper that was blocked, and forward Azuolas Tubelis missed another.

The Wildcats fouled Princeton’s Caden Pierce on their next possession, but Pierce hit both to put Princeton up by three, to the delight of the majority of the Golden 1 Center crowd. Then, needing a 3-pointer just to send the game into overtime, UA failed again when Ramey and Kriisa both missed.

Ramey crumpled to the floor after his miss before managing to race down for the final few seconds. But Evbuomwan hit the first of two free throws to put the game out of reach.

For Ramey, it was a frustrating transition from just five days earlier, when he hit a 3 to give UA a win over UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament championship. It also ended a quest for postseason success that both Ramey and forward Cedric Henderson sought after moving to Arizona last summer for grad-transfer seasons.

“Definitely trust myself late in the game,” Ramey said. “I wish the ball went in, of course, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

What they could have done, the way Kriisa and Lloyd explained it, was not get to the point where they needed a game-tying 3-pointer in the first place.

“I told our guys, if you want to be a great player, you want to be a great coach, we all got to learn from this,” Lloyd said. “We got to go back and figure out what happened and understand the value of being up 10 to 12 points with 10 minutes to go, putting the hammer on people, not letting people get back in the game.”

Kriisa said it became tougher the way Princeton heavily defended Tubelis down the stretch, daring UA to take mid-range shots, but he didn’t cite that as the ultimate problem.

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Nor did he seem particularly interested in discussing his sore shoulder and cut right hand, nor Ballo’s broken left hand.

“Everyody’s banged up this time of year,” Kriisa said.

There were no excuses for Kriisa. Especially, again, after getting ahead 47-35.

“The fact is that we can’t blow a lead,” Kriisa said. “We’re up 12 with 10 minutes to go in March Madness …”

The Wildcats had actually foreshadowed the end of the game at the end of the first half.

Arizona held a 30-22 lead heading into the final four minutes but committed two turnovers and missed the front ends of two one-and-one free throw opportunities to allow the Tigers to nearly take the lead at halftime.

After the Wildcats nearly turned the ball over again on their final possession of the half, with Kriisa missing an off-balance 3-pointer with six seconds to go as the shot clock wore down, Princeton raced the ball downcourt. But a layup from Matt Allocco missed just before the buzzer.

Azuolas Tubelis wound up leading the Wildcats in scoring with 22 points on 9-for-20 shooting but took just four trips to the line in his physical matchup around the basket. Ballo added 13 points and 12 rebounds despite playing with a broken left hand.

“It was bad timing of injuries, but we were trying to go through it,” Ballo said. “It’s March. This kind of stuff happens.”

Afterward, when the news conferences were held and the locker rooms opened for media, several Wildcats were red-eyed and quiet. Henderson, one of the Wildcats’ most affable players, even declined comment.

But Lloyd expressed his disappointment in a calm way at the postgame podium, and Kriisa indicated he offered perspective immediately in the locker room after the Wildcats walked off the floor.

“Nobody died,” Kriisa said. “It’s sport. That’s the beauty of sport. That’s the beauty of March Madness. That’s why it is (expletive) madness. We just got to learn from it.”

Photos: Arizona vs Princeton in first round of NCAA men's tournament